For The Sake Of The Future
by PrettyLittleAgent
Summary: It's 2020 and Aria Montgomery has much bigger fish to fry than anything Rosewood ever had to offer. But what happens when necessity causes her to open the firmly shut door her old life is hiding behind? Just what is she willing to do for the sake of her future?
1. Chapter 1

I don't own or operate or control PLL. This is just my attempt playing in their sandbox. This is a slightly retooled version of a story I started before, but deleted because it didn't fit canon anymore at all. This one is current to 4x20.

* * *

Raleigh, North Carolina

February 28, 2020

She couldn't remember what writing fiction felt like anymore.

Her writer's brain wasn't processing anything that didn't have to do with Clinton-era rhetoric and Reagan Administration delivery. The voice in her head no longer sounded like her own; instead she read back her writings in a twisted impression of her candidate, his pauses and inflections so ingrained in her mind that turning it off was becoming harder and harder.

She was pretty sure that going straight from graduation to working for a Senate campaign had broken her somehow, but compared to the still-healing scars of her past these breaks had a purpose and that had to count for something.

It had to.

Once she got to write the junior senator from North Carolina's victory speech following the presidential election in November maybe then she'd try going back to writing about darkly-lit bars and jukeboxes stuck on B26… and then add in the murderous stalker team and a true-crime writing journalist with questionable morals for a bit of added spice.

Actually she'd probably just end up getting appointed as Director of Speechwriting and spend the next four years doing this all over again, just no longer moving from hotel room to hotel room and coffee shop to coffee shop in between long stretches of hours on a campaign bus that went from rocking her into sleep to rocking her into puking.

"Aria, you got the Columbus speech draft yet?"

She blinks as she turns away from the bright screen of her laptop, her eyes taking a second to adjust to the dim lights of the campaign office she's in. It must have been well after 5 o'clock since the sun is no longer lighting up the room and instead a few single desk lamps cast an eerily glow that fails to reach her area in the corner of the space.

Ben Castle stands before her in his wrinkled suit pants and un-tucked dress shirt, his tie long gone and probably only to be found when his poor assistant tries to clean up the mess he makes at his desk at the end of every night.

"No, I've got the domestic speech. I think Fisher has Columbus."

"Starbucks, Columbus is domestic policy." Aria's eyes narrow at the mention of her Secret Service codename before letting her confusion take over.

"But I thought Columbus was about exploration or something…"

"I think you're thinking of Christopher Columbus there Skippy." The upward quake of Ben's lips as he looks at her reminds her of the look Spencer always gave them when the girls had said something silly, but that moment passes quickly as she focuses on the topic at hand.

"Well, whatever I'm thinking of I'm clearly wrong or just mentally stuck in the 15th century when we still had continents to explore. Regardless, I just got the C-Section on mental health to finish before I'll send it off." Aria's attention turns back towards the screen, the blinking cursor mocking her as she struggles to find a way to put a bit of a lyrical flare into a paragraph that discusses strengthening America's mental health system in conjunction with tightening background checks on gun sales. It's nothing new in this primary season, in fact she's pretty sure the 5 other candidates vying for the Democratic nomination are saying the same thing, but it's her job to make sure her guy's words stand out.

"Good, because I got something we have to talk about."

"I didn't drink your damn latte Ben; go sniff around the interns for signs of caramel."

"We got a $2,500 gift in from the Springer Preservation Fund." His words are like a cold splash of water, chilling the pit of her stomach and causing her fingers to stop on the keyboard. She knew that name—and the woman attached to it.

"You can't be serious." Aria's brown eyes search Ben's face for some sign of a _but_, something that would give more to the story, but she finds just as much confusion on his face as she assumed he saw on hers. _Except he doesn't look anywhere near as pale as I suddenly feel._

"Marshall just called up and told me it came into the Pennsylvania office an hour ago via courier. Dianne Fitzgerald even signed the check herself." Ben pulls out a chair and sits down on it with a whoosh of air, his chin coming to rest on fists he props up on the top of the seat. "The question none of us can seem to answer is why a long-time Republican donor would suddenly start sending us money. The closest link we can come up with is you." Aria chews at her bottom lip as she stares ahead, trying to ignore the memories of Rosewood and Ezra and love and sadness that were flooding into her brain.

Every single day since she packed up her car and drove to New York City and Columbia University, Aria has been waging a battle with herself to forget the past that could easy pull her down. Rosewood and the people in it had long ago stopped being home for her; instead it remains as a bastion of all that she's done wrong in her life. This campaign, this mission of hers to get a candidate that could change the world for the better elected, is supposed to be her penance.

It all starts to feel tainted now.

"I don't know what game she's playing." Aria finally answers him as she snaps back to reality, her fingers starting to tap out some subpar prose that Senator Wright would mock her for later. The typing was a nervous tick, something meant to distract her and Ben as she still ponders what Dianne would want with her and her candidate. "She throws around money to get rid of unexpected and unwelcome things, not support them and help them grow. Unless this is an anthrax-laced check of mass destruction, I've got nothing."

"Bribe us somehow?"

"Into what? Firing me? Right now I'm long gone and away from her son which is probably right where she wants me. Taking a chance by screwing up my life would be idiotic and she's smart enough to know that." Taking a sip from her water, Aria puts it down before shrugging her shoulders. "Maybe she just wants our attention in case we win."

"No, that doesn't feel right. She's up to something, I can just taste it." Ben mutters, shaking his head. Aria is apt to agree with him, knowing Dianne wouldn't be poking around without a reason, but she also has the sense of mind to let the situation play itself out. In the grand scheme of things Dianne Fitzgerald is just a tadpole in the large pond of politics that this campaign was swimming in.

"So are you really going to sit here and worry about an old society lady when the latest Gallop poll has Robertson gaining at our expense?" Aria questions as she arches an eyebrow at Ben, goading the older man in hopes his clockwork mind will stop spinning around with thoughts of her situations.

"That Gallop poll is crap. Did you read the wording? Robertson was going to come out better no matter what with that _leading the country_ crap. Did they write the damn thing right after the stump speech in Iowa? Just ask who the hell you'd vote for for God's sake." Ben stands up and turns the chair back around to face Aria, the brunette girl smiling at her success. "Get that speech over to the Senator as soon as you're finished." He orders while heading away from the desk, his hands shoved into his pants pockets. "And don't think I didn't notice what you just did there. You're good but you ain't that good" She chuckles at the comment but doesn't follow up, instead focusing on the speech at hand.

Her past can wait for another day. Elections, and the future, don't allow people the luxury of stopping and ruminating on the past.

Sometimes it's just better to leave doors closed, no matter what the mess is behind them.

Her lids start to become heavy and a burden to keep open about an hour into her typing. The idea of closing her eyes for a brief moment, just to let them rest, becomes too much to ignore and very soon her head finds its way to her keyboard, sleep and the dreams of Rosewood it is bound to bring claim her quickly, politics be damned.

"ARIA! WAKE UP!" The scream across the open office space caused the brunette to jolt up in fright, the sleep scared away by a loud and southern-tinged voice.

"WHAT?" She answered back without thought, her brown eyes searching around the room for the source of her abrupt and terrifying awakening. The jean and sweater clad figure of Senator Elias Wright caused her to groan, her hand coming up to rub her sore neck. "Was that really necessary sir?"

"Probably not. I just like yelling." His face was alight with a smirk and he walked like the weight of an entire campaign wasn't upon him. He was always like that late at night, as if something about the shadows allowed him to shuck off his worries and live like he did before he became a politician. He strolled over to her desk and turned around the chair Ben had been in earlier, straddling it like he owned the place.

Which he did, technically, but that's for another day.

"What do I owe the pleasure of a visit from you at," She grabbed her iPhone 10 and squinted at the screen, "12:29 AM, sir?"

"Well I got your email with the speech attached and grew concerned when the body of the message just had a bunch of random letters and a long string of ones."

"Crap, I must have fallen asleep on the computer again." The older man shook his head, eyeing the Starbucks cup sitting on the edge of the wooden desk, Aria's name written boldly across the side of it.

"All that caffeine is going to kill you." Aria snorted at the comment, running her fingers through her hair as she struggled to completely get her bearings.

"Well wouldn't that be some narrative? Campaign staffer dies of caffeine overdose, candidate now leading the anti-coffee crusade." She rolls her head as she laid out the morose headline, the senator fixing her with a paternal gaze. "Fine, fine, I'll try to lay off the coffee… or at least be near a bed when I crash."

"At the rate you're going I might just have to outfit all my offices with a rollaway bed when you come to town." Aria's face looked a bit too eager for the senator's liking, causing him to fix her with a look that clearly said that wasn't his preferred option. "You should get to your hotel. I didn't pay for that thing not to get slept in."

"What do you mean _you_ didn't pay? I'll have you know the Campaign to Elect Elias Wright was responsible for the purchasing of that room." Aria's voice took on a grand tone as she mocked the ending of most campaign ads, grabbing a cup of water she also had on her desk, her throat scratchy.

"And if we take a loss on it we can just use the money from our good friend Dianne Fitzgerald to cover it?" Aria coughed a bit as the caviler mention of Dianne's name by the senator caught her off guard. He had a habit of doing that, brazenly pushing the sore spots of people in order to see their gut reaction.

"Did you come looking for me for answers about that? Because, as I told Ben, I don't have any." Her voice has an edge of defensiveness about it, the sort of edge Elias hated hearing in the voice of a girl he'd quickly come to see more as a daughter than anything else. It didn't hurt matters at all that she happened to be the same age his stillborn daughter would have been had she survived.

"I came to see how you were handling it, and obviously the answer is not well."

"Is anyone surprised?" Aria lent back into her seat, her arms folded across her chest. "I think everyone around here knows I like to avoid my past and they respect it. Well, everyone except you, sir." He smiled sadly at her words, knowing their truth. Often he finds it hard to separate that fatherly instinct of his and he knows that the young brunette bears the brunt of the concern.

"Sometimes, even though we don't like it, the best thing to do is not ignore your past but learn to live with it."

"If you keep coming out so strongly for the pro-gay marriage amendment, you're going to lose North Carolina." Elias' face immediately dropped into a downturned expression, his eyes getting a bit steely. Aria read the look loud and clear, but she was no longer that girl who would back down from a fight. "Oh, I'm sorry, I thought we were doing '_unwanted show-and-tell'_. My bad." His lips pursed at her words and he took a moment to study her annoyed look. He spoke again after a beat.

"You know nothing about what happened to you in Rosewood is a secret anymore, right? The minute we really kicked off this campaign you had a Secret Service shakedown and boy did they not like what they found." If he was expecting a reaction, he didn't get one. Aria remained unimpressed, staring at him expectantly as she waited to see where he was going with this. "I bring this up because at some point you need to come to terms with the fact they-"

"Sir, unless you want me to stop trying to get you elected and instead go into some extreme therapy, today is not that point and tomorrow isn't going to be it either." They started at each other in silence for a moment, both unwilling to weaver from their point even though they knew the other was right.

"There aren't very many people anymore who will argue with me like that." Elias told her as he finally broke the silence, the less argumentative tone immediately causing both sides to relax. Aria let out a grim laugh as she rested her arms on her desk and lent forward into a stretch.

"And I will be one of them when we're in a room with other people."

"Oh don't even dare doing that when Anna is in the room. She'd get a kick out of it." Aria chuckled at the idea of Mrs. Wright laughing at someone pushing back against her husband's mighty will. It wasn't a flux that the press called him _The Stubborn Southerner. _Elias Wright was like a dog with a bone when he had his mind set. People that he came to trust had to have the same mentality or else they'd get trampled over by him. It was that fact that so many people credited as the reason why this relatively new senator (only in his 2nd term) had a _very _good chance of making it to the top office: he and his staff were out to win and win they would.

"Do you remember the first time we met?" Elias' eyes light up at the memory, a laugh escaping him before he could contain it.

"How could I forget? I had thought I was walking into that classroom just doing an easy favor for a friend. I didn't expect to get blindsided by a student who picked up on something 28 journalists and my own wife had failed to." Aria smiled in satisfaction at the reminder of her intelligence. Pride might not be one of the good virtues, but it sure made her happy sometimes.

"So you just thought you got away with sounding like an adulterer and a Nazi?"

"Basically."

"Are you saying you thought you put the _Wright_ spin on things?" Elias' face fell flat at the corny pun, Aria starting to cackle with laughter.

"You start using that in the speeches I'll fire you no problem."

"I'll believe it when I see it." It was an idle threat and they both knew it. This type of synergy wasn't something you messed with when the presidency was on the line, especially not when every other speechwriter he'd worked with had quit or been fired in under a month. "So did you come here to just play father or was there a real point to this?"

"Maybe that was the point." Aria served him with a look, one that showed just how much she didn't want to ever speak about Byron Montgomery. While he hadn't been the one that actually killed Alison, that honor belonged to no one since the girl had been alive the entire time, his actions that night and after Ezra had broken her heart did nothing to endear him to his little girl. The lies and deceit were too much for her to deal with to this day. "Someone needs to make sure you aren't burning too bright."

"Are we really going to go down this road again? Between you and Ben you'd think I was a crystal meth addict instead of someone who just has a lot on their plate and not enough hours in the day."

"You wouldn't be like this if we hired you an assistant." Her brown eyes rolled at the senator's comment, tired of the men in her life trying to insert themselves in her work in the name of her best interests.

"Well you probably wouldn't be this close to the nomination if we did either, so you pick your poison." Elias sunk back in his chair, staring firmly at the girl who refused to wilt under his glare.

"It was pride that changed angels into devils…" Aria rolled her eyes at the quote, opening up her laptop to pull up the speech she'd sent to him.

"I'll make sure I say an extra Hail Mary tonight Saint Augustine. Now, don't we have a speech we should be working on?"

"Why do you think she sent the check?" Her eyes bounced from the computer screen to stare at his, her pain in thinking about the situation and the memories it brought up clear.

"I think she did it to get her name in the picture." She admitted after a beat, reaching out for her glass of water. Aria took a sip before placing it back on her desk, her finger toying with the rim of the cup. "Dianne isn't ready to say her full piece, but she's setting it up so when she wants to we'll listen."

"And will we?"

"I don't know." Aria looked up at the sign on the wall, _Wright for President_, before pointedly staring at the senator. "Why don't you ask the guy in charge?"


	2. Chapter 2

Columbia, South Carolina

March 3, 2020

"You know, we've only got 5 more years of elephants in Africa."

"Excuse me?" Aria's eyes turned from the iPad she was scanning to the figure sitting at the door, nervously clutching a stack of papers. Nathaniel "Nate" Theroux, Wright for America's Campaign Manager, was one of the most brilliant political minds of this generation. A master operative, his ability to inhale fact and exhale spin were envied by many on Capitol Hill.

He was also one of the most neurotic people Aria had ever met.

"The growth of the Eastern world, particularly China, has caused an increase in ivory demand." He continued to stare ahead as he spoke, his eyes fixated on a spot that Aria couldn't tell was anything special. "Experts predict that by 2025, they'll all be gone."

"Nate, you ok over there?" She reached out for her glass of water, as if hydration was a cure to keep her from going as crazy as the man across from her seemed to be. His head turned towards her, letting her take in his furrowed brow.

"I should have warned him that might get brought up by both environmentalist and those who hate China."

"Because being the holder of an astronomical portion of our debt isn't reason enough to be weary of our friends in the east."

"Calling them elephant killers is a better headline than debt holders."

"I think you're overestimating how much people care about elephants."

"People should love elephants… Dumbo was my favorite movie growing up."

"… yeah, I'm getting a pretty bleak picture of your childhood now Nate." The older man laughed at Aria's comment as he turned his attention to the plates of food he'd stationed himself near. Picking at the cut kiwi, he began to spout out a list of topics he'd like to see incorporated into the next few speeches the senator would be giving. Not missing a beat, Aria shifted back to her iPad and began to take notes, her mind already at work on just how to talk about extending agricultural subsidies in the most eloquent way possible. She didn't see him leave, but could hear him muttering down the hall. He was probably off to speak with Senator Wright after his press junket the campaign had scheduled with media in the primary states they couldn't get to in time.

Before long other people began to make their way into the room Aria was in. Primary results nights were always interesting, filled with highs and lows (less of the former now that this season wouldn't seem to end). Pretty soon Aria with surrounded by most of the members of the "senior staff" and some miscellaneous local campaigners who had gotten into the room by virtue of hard work or brown nosing.

"I swear to GOD if this damn thing lasts another month, I will personally go out and KILL Robertson." Nate yelled as he stormed back into the office suite after his brief absence, drawing frightened looks from most of the interns and locals. The ire of the New Yorker was off-putting for most southerners and young people. It was the kind that wasn't so personal to offend, but general enough that you could get the impression he was a bitter cynic incapable of enjoying life.

"You can't say those things in front of the Secret Service." Aria commented offhandedly, her eyes focused on the various TVs, watching the primary results come flowing in.

"And really killing someone as high profile as Robertson wouldn't help us much. You want his endorsement in the end. Really you need to go after Representative Hicks, he's the one grabbing the liberals and the Senator's worked with him in the past. Aria could write a nice little statement and it would probably swing us over in the end." Ben sipped his soda as he finished speaking, looking over towards Nate and being surprised when he was greeted by a skeptical look.

"I don't like how much you've thought about that man. It freaks me out." The older man shrugged after the comment though, dismissing it as he moved towards his staff, the sound of Brian Williams swelling as someone turned up NBC.

"… as results continue to pour in it looks like, just as the polls were telling us, the Democratic Party's nomination process will continue on to next week with Senator Elias Wright and Governor Albert Robertson both failing to come out with any clear lead in the 5 contests held today."

"More delegates, less states. If this was the Electoral College, we'd be golden." Daniel Helms, Campaign Spokesman and general awesome fellow, summarized nicely. His words to say on this election cycle would most likely get him fired if he said them in front of a camera, but within this group he, and everyone else, was free to talk. "Has no one ever thought about how much that damn process just LOOKS bad on a camera? I mean, we could win this whole thing but based on the visuals we could seem screwed and I don't want 2000 Bush stank all over us… or really any Bush stank for that matter."

"If this shit keeps going on into June no one is going to get any stank because Cross is going to have already solidified his win! I mean, does nobody SEE what I do? Does no one in this goddamn party realize we need to get our shit together? I mean… COME ON!" A balled up napkin bounced against the TV, disrupting the viewing experience of most in the room and bringing eyes to the Campaign Manager.

"Nate, what did we say about throwing things?"

"Miranda, what did I say about getting your polling data together and figuring out what the hell we need to do to make this a one horse show?" Miranda Daly was not a timid woman, she might hide behind her numbers in public, but behind closed doors she would cut you quicker than most. Instead of rising to Nate's bait, the Stanford grad simply lent back into her seat a bit and looked up confidently.

"I told you, people aren't seeing the difference between us and Robertson." Nate rolled his head over to glare at the sitting communication's staff, Aria and Daniel both giving various looks of discontent back while their boss, the stately Jonathon Fisher, once the head of a million dollar consulting firm and now the communications director, continued to sip on his drink, answering the challenge put before him calmly.

"You give us a different policy to work with and then you'll get something. Right now all we're saying is just what they're saying and no one can remember who said what version first." He wasn't saying what Nate wanted to hear. It was his blind determination that got him where he was today and it would be what got the Senator elected. In his mind a communications team worth its salt could dress up a cat to look like a money and get it to sell for a billion dollars. He made sure to tell them that, only managing to draw a laugh from Jon.

"I think the point we all need to get to is that we need to come up with something that will shake this race up, because right now we are on cruise control and settling in for the long-haul." Ben finally butted in, trying to focus the room away from another edition of the Nate and Jon Show and back to the election at hand. "We need to talk about what isn't being talked about and do it big."

"Or drop some bombshell like the Governor's addicted to heroin." Daniel offhandedly suggested, Aria quickly slapping him in the shoulder. "Jesus Christ, stop wearing rings!"

"Well it can't be foreign policy, short of another war getting started that is an unsavory horse no one wants to beat." Nate paced past Ben as a list of suggestions were throw out, each topic failing to excite enough people to seem worthwhile.

"What if it can't be about policy? What if we gotta go with image?" Daniel finally spurted out, the statement floating in the air for a while as all the minds in the room chewed on it. The idea of this election being about anything besides policy irked the generally idealistic group, but the long road they were on was starting to tear them all down and compromises and concessions were a fate they all knew would one day have to be met. "I mean, let's be real, most of America is already saying the Wrights look like something out of a magazine… we capitalize on the fact that this is a solid American family that would be dynamite on the world stage and go from there."

"Dynamite? When the hell did you join the cast of a 1970s' sitcom?" The man's head lolled to the side as he shot Aria a glare, her lips only quaking slightly in reply. Everyone, including herself, was too busy chewing the idea, seeing if they could handle not focusing as much on the issues as they did the face of the family America would want representing itself. It was shallow and petty and now all too American for the idea not to work.

"Anyone here remember the good ole' days when a candidate could be in a wheelchair and still get elected because he was just that damn good?" The reminiscent question from Nate was the best any of them were going to get from him in terms of approval for this. Outright saying yes to it would seem like too much of a defeat for him… the uncomfortable and disappointing stuff he tended to leave for Ben to deal with. Which, judging by the look on his face, he was getting ready to handle.

"Alright, I need the top five most effective channels for hitting up the women of America and I need Mrs. Wright on them within the next week. Christian and Noah need to keep their noses clean and where America can see them. Aria, Noah have any time off soon?" She looked up startled from her iPad as the attention of everyone fell on her.

"Do I look like his iPhone calendar or something Ben? Ask him yourself!"

"Oh come on, we don't have time for this game where you pretend not to know; the boys tell you stuff like this all the time!" It was true that Noah and Christian Wright had become good friends of Aria's in the time she'd been connected to the family. The boys (which wasn't really an apt word for Noah considering he was 30) were unofficial campaign members currently, coming out of the woodwork every once in a while when needed. While Noah had an easier time of it due to his consulting work, Christian was just finishing his first year in a Master's program at Duke. Getting Christian, while the best move to target the young voter, meant causing the boy to sacrifice sleep and sanity, something Aria didn't want to deal with again after last November's Red Bull debacle.

"Alright, fine. He mentioned that he was wrapping up in Detroit by the end of this week." Aria begrudgingly answered as she picked up her phone, already drafting her text to him in her mind. _Go help the needy and make sure you get it on Twitter._

"America's tarnished grand jewel… we couldn't plan this better if we tried." Although he had wondered for most of this election cycle if the odds were in his favor, this good fortunate seemed to make Ben believe that, even just for a moment, some divine hand was cutting him a break. "Right, now, Starbucks, go tell the Senator the plan."

"What the hell!? I'm communications, not operation. The notifications burden falls on your lazy ass, not mine." The outburst from the short writer were becoming all too uncommon. The farther into this campaign she got the more Aria started to understand a little bit more why Spencer had lost it every once in a while. The pressure of being the "golden child", the one with all the answers, could eat away at someone's patience and strength more than anything else.

"We'll both go tell him… no one needs to see the idealism start to die in a candidate by themselves. Plus, let's face it Aria, who can stay mad at you?" Aria only raised an eyebrow at Nate. He was one of the few people that knew the COMPLETE Aria Montgomery tale and knew the true dark humor in what he was saying.

* * *

"I don't like it."

"I'm not saying you have to like it Eli, I'm just saying you have to do it." The Senator slumped down a little into the couch as his wife put an arm around him, knowing her husband didn't enjoy the idea of forcing his family from the limited role they'd easily taken into more of a frontline one.

"As much as it pains me, I agree with Nate on this… even though I feel like I'm selling my soul to the devil when I say that." Aria's face scrunched up a bit as she turned towards Nate, who looked slightly amused at her comparison. "We can convince Ben to tone down the force-feeding I'm sure he's planning, but reminding America that your policies are the sum of your experiences as a happy husband and father is something the other candidates can't do as well."

"Elias, I promise this doesn't bother me and you know it won't bother the boys… well, maybe Christian, but you know he isn't happy unless he has something to be conflicted about."

"And he just finished his midterms so really this will just be helping him out." Aria added on to Mrs. Wright's comment, drawing a smile from the older woman. The attention of the room shifted back to Elias Wright as he deliberated on everything that was being thrown at him. He's always sworn he'd try to keep his campaign elevated above the trivialities that had seem to swarm into the American political landscape. How a candidate's family shouldn't be just as important as their stance on immigration, but somewhere along the way it seemed that the electorate had lost that message. If he had any hope of trying to correct it, Elias realized that some concessions would have to be made.

With a sigh the Senator gave the go ahead, his wife moving her hand to lay it reassuringly on his thigh. "Don't worry baby, this will be fun. Remember driving around the county back when you were running for the State House? It's the same thing… just instead of a truck we'll be in a state of the art bus and instead of church yards it will be massive rallies with hundreds of cameras. We've upgraded." Aria couldn't help but laugh at Anna's attempt to lighten the mood. This primary cycle was starting to wear heavily on all of them, the Senator especially. It wasn't that he was used to things coming easy to him or anything, but the fact it was March and he wasn't the clear nominee was doing something to his confidence. Sensing that the couple might need some time, Aria tapped Nate and nodded to the door once she'd gotten his attention.

"Well sir, I'll get with Ben and start laying out the next few weeks for everyone. We should have something together by the morning."

"And I'll start putting together some talking points for everyone. We don't want anyone scripted, but a cohesive message from all of you will help the voters really get what we're going for."

"Thanks guys. And I mean it. I know I can be difficult and-"

"You're not difficult sir," Aria interrupted, "you're being protective, just like any father." Her words made a smile cross the older man's face and he held her eyes for a moment, their conversation from a few nights ago coming back to their minds.

"Regardless, I appreciate you putting up with me. Have a good night." The group exchanged a few more pleasantries before Nate and Aria left the hotel suite, their phones pulled out the second the door shut behind them.

"Getting a schedule for all of this put together shouldn't be too hard." Aria started as they headed towards the elevator, neither were going towards their rooms, instead it would be back to the meeting space the campaign had taken over as soon as they'd checked in. Rather abruptly though, Nate stopped in his tracks and looked up at the ceiling for a moment before looking back at Aria.

"I think we need to start considering the possibility of building our arsenal with a bit more hardy stock." Immediately Aria knew what he was talking about. Her time spent in a wild goose chase with a psycho had made her pretty versed in the lingo of dirty secrets.

"Nate, you know as well as I do that the minute you start suggesting we get dirty is the minute your ass gets kicked to the curb."

"I'm not talking about a 2000 South Carolina here. I'm saying I think we need to beef up opposition research so they aren't just looking through LexisNexis and Twitter all day."

"And you're mentioning this to me because…"

"Because you know a thing or two about what it takes to get yourself dirty to find the truth." Aria grew cold for a second at Nate's words, the icy memories of Roseword and A starting to come to the surface. It must have been apparent on her face that he'd hit a nerve because his hand quickly moved to her shoulder in reassurance. "Hey, hey, don't go there, ok? I'm not talking about any of them. I'm saying you might know better than most what we need to be looking for in a hire." His words brought her back to reality and made her consider what she'd gained from what she'd been through. Nate was right, Aria hadn't spent all that time around multiple psychos with the ability to find out anything not to have picked up a thing or two about what made them tick.

"Yeah, sure, you're right. I'll speak with Arthur in the morning about finding him another researcher." The New Yorker took a moment to just look at Aria before he responded, almost as if he was checking to see if he'd done some sort of permanent damage. "Nate, I'm fine."

"Alright. Good." He stepped back and started heading towards the elevator again, Aria right behind him. "Now, Ben's going to want to hit up the morning shows but I'm thinking we need to look at a couple of afternoon slots too…"


End file.
